Glen Farley has covered the Patriots for The Enterprise since the Raymond Berry regime.

Conference calls with the coaches

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By Glen Farley

Glen Farley has covered sports for The Enterprise since 1978. His time on the Patriots beat dates back to the final year of the Raymond Berry regime, 1989. You could say his roots lie in Foxboro. He once won an award for a piece he wrote on the sod
...

Glen Farley has covered sports for The Enterprise since 1978. His time on the Patriots beat dates back to the final year of the Raymond Berry regime, 1989. You could say his roots lie in Foxboro. He once won an award for a piece he wrote on the sod at Gillette Stadium.

As always, we thank the Patriots media relations department for their work:

PATRIOTS HEAD COACH BILL BELICHICK

CONFERENCE CALL

October 8, 2013

BB: Just been going through all the New Orleans film. They’re pretty impressive; they do a lot of things well. They look good on offense, pretty balanced. Very aggressive offensive attack and defensively they do a good job as well – they have good personnel and a good scheme. [They’re] obviously explosive in the kicking game as well. You can see why they won five games. They’re a real solid football team, well coached and very well balanced, good in all phases of the game. Another team we don’t know very well and we’ve got to really make up some ground on them preparation-wise this week. It’s just all part of the challenge here; but it’s a good football team.

Q: What kind of matchup problems do Jimmy Graham and Darren Sproles present and how tough do they look to defend on tape?

BB: Tough, real tough. Graham’s a very good receiving tight end. They split him out, they keep him kind of in the traditional tight end positions but he’s got a big route tree; vertical receiver that can get down the field but he’s also got good quickness in the intermediate areas, tough to handle on third down. Sproles is a real explosive guy that can take a pass behind the line of scrimmage, screen pass or angle route or flat route and turn it up and turn them into huge plays. Also, he has a pretty big route tree too: vertical routes, inside routes, outside routes. They use some empty formation, not a ton of it, but enough and it’s hard to find him – both of them, they move around quite a bit. They’re definitely tough matchups.

Q: Will Drew Brees change plays frequently or will he look for matchups post snap? How much work does he do at the line to get them in and out of plays? How important is the disguising chess match that you’ll do defensively?

BB: That’s a real challenging part of playing New Orleans here and their offense. I would say that they certainly have the ability to change plays. He will, at times. You’ll see him change plays or change protections. I wouldn’t say that it’s something you see him do a lot, but he certainly can do it. I think they’re a team that plays at a pretty high tempo: quick counts, they come out and they go fast a lot of times, not all the time but enough. I think that the pace that they go at, even though they’re not really a no-huddle team per se, they have a very fast tempo. I think that’s a very challenging part of playing against them. Does he change them? Yes. Can he change them? Yes. Does he do it a lot? I wouldn’t say it’s… we’ve seen other guys do it more. But I would say that he does it probably when he needs to, like if they’re in a play that’s a bad play, he can get out of it. But he plays at a fast tempo and you don’t have a lot of time defensively to see your assignments, communicate them and do them because it all happens in a hurry. They give you a lot of different looks so you have to react to it pretty quickly.

Q: So you have to get lined up, you can’t be playing games and trying to disguise?

BB: I’d say that’s pretty accurate. You have to be careful about trying to do too much with him. You better be able to get to what you have, which does mean that a lot of times you have to show what you’re in, in order to match up against their different looks because they create a lot of different formationing and like I said, detaching the tight end, detaching the backs, they use a lot of different personnel groups with the multiple tight ends – all their backs play, all their tight ends play, all their receivers play. They run them in and out of there in a hurry. Then get lined up and get to go, you have to be ready to play when the ball is snapped because he does a very good job of, when the defense, when they miss somebody, he finds them. They get a bunch of plays every week on I would say, defensive mistakes or alignment errors that he recognizes and just gets the ball to whoever it is and then you’re chasing him. That’s a big challenge.

Q: On Sunday with regard to first downs, you guys ran the ball successfully quite a bit early on and then you got away from it and were pass heavy. What were your thoughts on that?

BB: Overall, there might have been some opportunities for us to call a few more runs. Some of those plays, at times, some of them are checked and [we] took what we felt was the best look or the best play. Of course at the end of the game, situationally we wound up throwing the ball quite a bit there the last couple series. We’re just trying to find the best matchups and trying to do what we thought was best to be able to move the ball efficiently. We did have some plays in the running game. I thought we had some opportunities in the passing game too. Could we have gone in a different ratio or percentage? We probably could have but we didn’t really feel that bad about what we were doing, we just didn’t do it well enough.

Q: Defensively, how different schematically are the Saints under Rob Ryan this year versus last year and what are some basic tenets of Ryan’s defense and the personnel they have on defense?

BB: They’ve had a real good start. I’d say last year they were a really heavy blitz, zone team and they gave up a lot of big plays, gave up a lot of yards and a lot of plays. I would say this year under Rob, they haven’t given up very many big plays. I’d say one of the characteristics of their defense is that they play a lot of multiple defensive packages that vary from week to week, similar to what Rex [Ryan] does, or has done at New York, at times, where they might play nickel but one week it’s one version of nickel and another week, it’s another version of nickel and they’ll play dime and they’ll play seven DBs but the players don’t necessarily all play in the same spots, they’ll move them around by game plan and by matchups and by the type of plays or calls that they want to run. Last week was probably a good example, where they came out in kind of a new-look, nickel look against the Bears and sacked him in the first couple series, got a strip-sack and a turnover on a couple, it looked like, protection errors that the Bears had on a couple of their blitzes and they get a couple turnovers, get a couple sacks, three-and-outs early and really kept Chicago from getting into much of rhythm in the game for the better part of the first half, just because of the way it started. You have to be ready for something new, different, that they haven’t shown that they just feel like is the way they match up against you and the way they deploy their personnel particularly in the secondary but really it’s the whole defense. But the way they deploy can change quite a bit from a game to game matchup basis. They played a lot of 3-4 defense early in preseason and that’s certainly their base, similar to what he did in Dallas, but the actual number of snaps that they’ve played during the regular season this year has been a far lower percentage. Again, they’ve gone up against some good passing teams like Chicago and Atlanta, teams like that, Miami has their own style of offense, so, again, he kind of modifies their base scheme based on what he’s facing and it can change from week to week.

Q: Do you think that there are a lot of similarities in Tom Brady and Drew Brees?

BB: I’m sure there are some. Both quarterbacks have had great careers: very productive, won a lot of games. They both do a lot of things well: complete a lot of passes for a lot of yards, for a lot of touchdowns and not too many turnovers and sacks and bad plays in there. So, quick decisions, accurate passing and all that, I think there are a lot of similarities like that. I think they each have their own playing styles that are also different but both very effective, both smart guys that see the field well, make quick decisions and manage the game well, find the right matchups, get the ball to their productive players and let them do a lot of the work and stay out of bad plays. That’s probably a pretty common thread with both of them over their careers.

Q: You ran the ball on first down the first four opportunities you had and did well at it, then threw on first down close to 80 percent of the time after that. Why did you tilt it so much the other way after your early success?

JM: Well, certainly you want to stay balanced on something like that, as much as you can, and I know that some of the situations that come up in the game certainly skew those numbers. We had had two two-minute situations there in the second quarter and then a few situations certainly towards the end of the game where we’re in much more of a pass mode. But our intention is never to really get out of whack in terms of run/pass ratio on any of those things, and certainly that’s something that I will always try to maintain a good balance on. If I ever get out of balance, I definitely want to try to bring it back to as close to 50/50 or somewhere near there as I can.

Q: When you guys take these shots 15-20 yards downfield on first down, is there a risk-reward factor to that? Because when you can’t make it, it seems like a tough bind.

JM: Yeah, I mean every time you make an effort to try to throw the ball down the field or run some type of a gadget play or take a shot and change field position or try to score the ball, there’s always the risk that you come up with a no gain or potentially even worse. If you’re willing to take the risk then you’ve got to live with sometimes the downside to that too, which is some second-and-10s in a game. But you’ve got to be aggressive. I mean, you can’t just continue to dink and dunk the ball and try to protect second down every series of the game. You have to be aggressive and make them defend the entire length of the field, and hopefully that’s something that we can do and do better as we go forward.

Q: What do you see on the film from the Saints defense, and how much different are they under defensive coordinator Rob Ryan now?

JM: We’ve watched a little bit of tape just in terms of their personnel from last season, but they’re an aggressive group. Rob has an aggressive style, there’s always a game plan element to what he does each week. He’s a really good coach. I know the players love playing for him; you can see that on the tape. They don’t give up many big plays; they certainly haven’t given up many points this year. They do a good job. I know they place a strong emphasis on getting to the quarterback and creating turnovers, and so far that’s been a very positive strength to their team. Something that we’re going to have to do a great job of on Sunday is taking care of the football and protecting our quarterback, because they do that almost as well as anybody in football on defense. They make you work for it. They’re disciplined, they will take some risks and some chances at times, but I think this is a strong group from front to back. They’ve got a really good pass rush that really can get after the quarterback without pressuring. They’ll have some kind of a unique blitz package ready to go for us that we’re going to have to handle on Sunday that we probably haven’t seen before, and I think they have very capable players. The linebacking corps, [they’ve] got a young safety [Kenny Vaccaro] that’s making a lot of plays, got some veteran players – [Roman] Harper and [Malcolm] Jenkins and [Jabari] Greer, [Keenan] Lewis in the secondary – that have really stood out and made it difficult for teams to create a lot of big plays against them. It’s a great challenge for us, and we’re looking forward to getting started tomorrow in our preparation.

Q: You had starting field position of no better than the 14-yard line in your first four drives, and then in the third and fourth quarters the Bengals had a couple of really long, sustained drives. Does poor starting field position impact or restrict your selection in what you can go to, and then when the other team is on the field for a long stretch, how does that affect your rhythm as a play caller as well as the offense’s rhythm?

JM: I think that any time that you start – certainly where you start with the ball can definitely impact what you, one, what you can do, and two, what you want to do based on what you really need to accomplish with the first few plays of the series. If you ever start inside your own one, two, three-yard line, I think you’re definitely trying to make sure you give the punter some room, and if you obviously can gain a first down and get the ball out of your own end, that’s definitely a goal. You also have to do a great job of taking care of the football and making sure that your head’s up for a lot of different things that they could do on defense as well. When your field position is – you get the ball across the 50-yard line or what have you, then you certainly don’t have to deal with concerning yourself with trying to improve field position for punting and those types of things, but you have more things available to you, maybe than what you would if you’re backed up. Look, our focus and our job on offense is to go out there and move the ball, take care of it, and score points on every drive regardless of how much or how little rest we have on the bench, on the sideline. Our defense has done a great job of giving us the ball back all year, and our mindset and our attitude really can’t change regardless of time of possession, whether it’s skewed in our favor or not. Our responsibility on offense is to go out there and score, and we can’t concern ourselves and don’t concern ourselves with the things that we can’t control.

Q: This will be the third straight opponent that you’ve faced that’s getting a lot of production out of its tight ends. For obvious reasons, you guys haven’t gotten that this year. How much of a hindrance has that been, and does it feel like you’re kind of operating with one hand tied behind your back because of all of those guys you don’t have?

JM: I think our focus, honestly – and every week it’s the same and over the course of the year it really hasn’t changed – our focus has to be on doing the things that you feel like can really give you the best chance to move the ball and score points with the players that you have. Our tight ends have done a nice job doing what we’ve asked them to do so far this season, and our receivers and the backs and some of the other guys have taken maybe a little bit more of the responsibility in the passing game because we designed it that way. I think that if you have players at a certain position, whatever that may be, if you have a back that’s a good pass-receiving back then they’ll get plenty of opportunities to do that in the game, and hopefully you can put him in a position to be successful, same thing with the tight end position and same thing with the receivers. We all go through times of the year where our roster is continually in flux, and that’s every team in the league and we’re absolutely no different. I mean, everybody goes through injuries, everybody goes through periods of time where a player or two may miss time, and does it affect the entire balance of your offense? At times it does, but that’s what 32 teams have to figure out how to do every week. This is business; business is being done, and you’ve got to try to do everything you can with the group that you have. We’re very happy with the guys we’ve got, and, like I said, we’re going to try to get production from everybody that dresses on Sunday.

Q: It seems like the Saints do a good job defensively generating or bringing pressure with secondary players. Do you think that’s accurate, and what sort of challenges does that present your offense if that’s the case?

JM: They definitely will use their secondary defenders to try to pressure the quarterback, that’s something that most teams do. Rob has always done that very well and he’s been very successful doing it, one of the best in the league at it. I think that the things that we need to make sure we’re prepared for is the things we don’t see on tape, and I know that sounds kind of strange, but some of the things you see against Chicago, you didn’t see against Atlanta, or you didn’t see it against Miami, and I think that speaks to the game plan element of this defense that we’re going to face. They definitely don’t have to blitz in order to create pressure on the quarterback, that’s been obvious over the course of the first five games. I mean, they’re like fifth or sixth in the league in sacks. Some of those are attributed to their pressure package, which includes their secondary, and most of them aren’t, so they don’t have to do it to create problems in your backfield, but they definitely have it in their package and I’m sure we’re going to have to deal with it on Sunday.

Q: How have you been able to deal the uncertainty of not knowing whether Rob Gronkowski will play during the week while you’re preparing your game plan and going through practice? How has that process worked out for you in terms of game planning and preparation?

JM: Well, we try to design a plan that’s balanced, that gives each position an opportunity to contribute both in the running game, passing game, third down, red zone, whatever the situation may be. And again, I think we’ve really just tried to focus on the defense that we’re playing, how the best way to attack them is, and understanding that maybe an element that, are we certain, are we uncertain – I have really tried to focus on just trying to get the guys to practice as well as they can. If Rob [Gronkowski] happened to be playing, then maybe we would tweak a few things, maybe we wouldn’t. I know he’s practiced and been a part of our practices, which has been great, and he’s taken his share of reps, and I think really our focus hasn’t changed and we haven’t dramatically had to shift anything. You just kind of do the best things that you can against the defense you’re playing, and if there’s a different player that’s available to you on Sunday, we deal with that every week. I mean, there’s unknowns as you go through the week many times, and if you have to make a slight adjustment or two towards the end, then that’s what you do, and I think the players are kind of used to that as well. They don’t usually flinch when you make an adjustment on Friday, or Saturday night, or whatever it may be, that you think may be the best interest of playing the game.

Q: I know the weather contributed to it, but any concern over the number of dropped passes over the course of the year?

JM: I think that our overall execution in the passing game on Sunday wasn’t what we wanted it to be. We had some throws that were a little off, and we had some guys that tried to make some tough catches and didn’t come up with them, and that’s football. We certainly don’t accept it and we’re not going to just stand there and not try to improve and get better at it every week, which we do work extremely hard at that, the guys are doing the same thing. It’s something that we can do our work during the course of the week and try to improve each individual player’s ability to do that, whether it’s throwing or catching the ball, and that’s really the way you go about trying to improve the execution in the passing game. There’s no magic potion or formula you use, and you certainly try to give them every opportunity during the course of the week to practice the things that they’re going to do on Sunday, and then hopefully those happen to carry over.

Q: Another high powered offense that you will be facing Sunday. I guess it probably starts with Drew Brees. In your opinion, what makes him such a challenging guy to go up against?

MP: Yeah, I mean obviously this is an excellent offense. I think it really starts with Drew Brees, starts with Sean Payton and [Offensive Coordinator] Coach [Pete] Carmichael, obviously, also at the helm. So, this offense has a wide variety of weapons that they do a great job of distributing the ball to in both the run and passing game. They do a great job from the standpoint of mixing personnel groups, formations, different looks that you see every week. They do a great job of running their concepts week-in, week-out, putting different people in excellent positions to make plays. I think Drew Brees does a great job of spreading the ball around and really finding the open receiver in the passing game or trying to get the right running play or right particular play called or audibled at the line of scrimmage, so I mean there is some of that in the offense also. I just think they do a phenomenal job of the system. They are a very fast-tempo offense from the standpoint they get the play in quickly; they are out of the huddle and at the line of scrimmage.

Q: Bill Belichick said yesterday that one of the things about Sean Payton as a play caller is that he makes you defend every inch of the field and looking at their pass receiving numbers, Jimmy Graham is followed by two running backs, Pierre Thomas and Darren Sproles and Thomas had nine catches against Chicago. Can you speak to the challenge of defending that offense and the way they incorporate their backs in particular in the passing game as well?

MP: Sure. I think Coach Belichick hit it right on the head. I mean they are obviously going to try to use every aspect of the field available to them to get the ball displaced and dispersed. The running backs do a great job in the passing game of getting out into space both with Sproles and Thomas. You know, out quickly into routes, they’ll line them up in different formations, remove them from the backfield and really allow them to take advantage of the particular matchup or the amount of area that they will have out in the field to work a particular route combination that they have established for them. They do a great job with that. Obviously, the tight ends, the running backs, Graham and [Ben] Watson, obviously the wide receivers, I mean [Marques] Colston, [Lance] Moore, [Nick] Toon, [Kenny] Stills, [Robert] Meachem, all of them play, all of them get on the field and all are a crucial and critical part to the offense, so you really have to defend all of it and that’s what makes it so difficult.

Q: As a follow-up, I know you haven’t seen Drew Brees firsthand a lot in past years, but does he seem more patient as he’s willing to take the yards underneath and the short yardage plays more this year? Last year, he had a pretty high interception number, just curious about his approach as a quarterback.

MP: Yeah, I think Drew, obviously, like I said before, does a great job of really trying to analyze a defense, see what you’re in, try to get to the proper read and progression, find the open receiver and distribute the ball very well to everyone. I think he is definitely doing a great job of that this year and really finding the particular weakness of the defense where he knows he can exploit it and get a real positive play or an explosive play out of it.

Q: Brees does have so many targets that he can look to but a lot of the time, I mean you know he wants to throw to Jimmy Graham. You know that that’s a dangerous option, what about him in particular makes him so hard to defend?

MP: Sure, I mean obviously, Jimmy Graham and Drew [Brees] have a real timing and relationship there where he does a great job of finding open areas, whether it is in zone coverage or working away from leverage in man coverage, he is a big target for Brees to throw the ball to. He has a big catch radius and is just a big-bodied person that gives you a difficult matchup when you are trying to put a defender on him or try to close a zone off where he can find that open space. So, I think they just do a good job, the two of them, of being on the same page in those particular situations where you know that’s where the ball is going and that’s the read for Drew [Brees] on that particular play, I think Jimmy [Graham] does a great job of finding the open zone or working away from leverage, whatever it is. There is obviously a good trust relationship there that they are going to be in the right spot and be on the same page.

Q: I was just wondering if you could comment, it seems like Brandon Spikes had a pretty active game on Sunday, and just comment on his play, maybe what you expect from him going forward?

MP: Well, I think, obviously coming out of Sunday and trying to take a look at the game moving forward into New Orleans, we are just trying to improve on our performance. Obviously, we need to do better than that [performance against Cincinnati]. I obviously need to coach them better and we have to go execute better than that, but I think Brandon really tried to go out and play hard and played aggressive and did the things that we asked him to do. But, obviously, it’s a situation where we all just have to do a better job and obviously try to do everything we can to come away with a victory. Obviously, we are pretty focused on New Orleans right now and moving forward to getting ready for the challenge that this offense really presents for us.

Q: With a weapon like Jimmy Graham, is he somebody you game plan around or game plan for specifically?

MP: Well, obviously I think the difficult thing that New Orleans presents from our perspective, and a positive for them on their perspective, is there’s multiple ways that they can and do attack a defense. Like I said, Coach [Sean] Payton will be quick to try and find out and see exactly how you are playing everyone in their offense and really try to work the ball around to their appropriate targets. Jimmy Graham being one obviously, but [Marques] Colston and all of them, the running backs, [Pierre] Thomas, you know, [Darren] Sproles, [Lance] Moore. I think they do a great job, again, of getting the ball distributed to the open receivers. I think you just really have to try to defend a lot in all areas of what they are trying to do. I think if you focus attention on just one particular spot then they have plenty of weapons to go elsewhere.

Q: You mentioned earlier some of the precision passing game and once you get the ball out quick in New Orleans, is this a week where maybe being physical at the line of scrimmage takes on an increased emphasis for you guys?

MP: Well, certainly, I think you know, again, this offense is a very balanced offense with both the drop-back passing game along with the play-action game and plays where they move the quarterback around along with the run game. I think you really have to try and be able to defend all of those situations and make sure you are not in a particular situation where you are just trying to handle one aspect of the offense and get caught in a bad play with something else that they are doing. Certainly, we want to make sure we have all of our bases covered there and can’t really let anybody free through the defense otherwise you are going to be in trouble. Drew [Brees] is going to be able to find them pretty quick, so, obviously, it is a big challenge for us to make sure we get all the skill players covered.

Q: There’s been a lot of focus so far this year about the rookie wide receivers, but you’ve got more than your share of rookies on the defensive side, especially on the line with Joe Vellano and Chris Jones and Michael Buchanan. Just wondering, if you could talk to how they are coming along, what you see from them now that you didn’t see from them earlier in the year?

MP: Well, I think obviously, we are well into the season here, so we have expectations for everybody on defense to continually get better and to work hard to improve. Obviously, those guys would fall into that category. I think they are trying to study and learn the game of football and have a better understanding of how the NFL works and operates. I think in general, again, we are just trying to get better and obviously, we’ve got to improve from last week as a defense as a whole and just try to do a better job than what we did. This week is going to be a big challenge for us. It will be a big challenge for the guys across the board, both up front and the back end, to be able to handle everything that New Orleans does. Certainly, their offensive line does a great job in both the run and pass protection, so that will be a big test for us up front to be able to see if we can hold up against what they are doing.